A five-time Grammy Award winner Shania Twain honored on Hollywood Walk of Fame

Shania Twain

Shania Twain, Canadian country music singing star a five-time Grammy Award winner, received the 2,442nd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, capping a successful career as a singer and a songwriter.

Calling the dedication "a small miracle," Twain said at an event in front of the W Hollywood hotel that she still did not know "why I am here today."

"I mean, why is a girl from Timmins, Ontario, standing here, getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame?" she said. "I really don't know."

Twain, 45, was joined by actress Bo Derek, a Golden Globe nominee and model, and other entertainers and fans at the ceremony held roughly a month after the release of her best-selling memoir "From This Moment On" and the premiere of a documentary series "Why Not? With Shania Twain" on OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network on May 8.

Born Eilleen Regina Edwards on Aug. 28, 1965 into a poor family in Windsor, Ontario, Edwards changed her last name to Twain as she, along with her two sisters, was adopted by her mother's second husband. Twain began singing at bars when she was eight years old trying to help her family make ends meet. She wrote her first songs when she was 10 years old and performed on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. television series the "Tommy Hunter Show" at the age of 13.

Twain, who changed her first name to Shania in the early 1990s, released her debut album, a self-titled production in 1993. The album, reached 67th on the U.S. country albums chart, received positive reviews from critics.

The singer first came to prominence with her second album, "The Women In Me." The 1995 album, unlike her first, featured songs she wrote herself and hit over 12 million copies, shattering the record previously held by "Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits," and winning a Grammy Award in 1996 for best country album.

Shania Twain

"Come on Over," her third album which was released in 1997, sold 20 million copies in the United States, the most by a woman in any genre of music and the best-selling country album of all time.

Twain is also a successful songwriter with 27 BMI Songwriter awards. She is the second best-selling artist in Canada, behind fellow Canadian Celine Dion.

Source : Xinhua, June 02, 2011, Thursday

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